Calendar update and the MN Hockey site

We now have an introductory MN Special Hockey page on the MN Hockey site. I've added this link to our web site reference and links page.

At least for now we're expecting to use the MN Hockey page for outreach, and the www.mnspecialhockey.org site for program information.

Along with this page we got some calendaring software. Toni Boelter is working with it. The good news is that I've integrated the calendar from the MN Hockey site onto the top of this news page and into our web site calendar page. Any changes made to the MN Hockey calendar will show up in these pages as well.

If you're technically savvy these web calendars can also be delivered to your desktop computer (Outlook 2007, OS X iCal, Google Calendar) or your iPhone or Palm Pre. The "web address" you need for that is shown on our MN Hockey calendar, it's:

webcal://www.minnesotahockey.org/event/ical_feed?tags=85015%252C85013

For example, I access all my calendars (about seven including this one) using Google Calendar and on my iPhone.

MN SH summer events and the kick-off skate Oct 25

I’ve added most of these to our Google Calendar which can be seen on this news site and on our web site.

This summary is from a Toni Boelter email (I’ve omitted events that have passed) …

Friday, July 24 - 2nd Annual, MN Special Hockey Saints Game. RSVP by July 1 and Board Meeting

NOTE: The annual board meeting will take place at Midway stadium starting at 5:45 pm.

Join us on Friday, July 24th, 2009 as we enjoy a picnic dinner and then sit back to watch our St. Paul Saints take on the Lincoln Salt Dogs. Dinner will be served inside the park beginning at 6pm, with a game time start of 7:05pm. Please RSVP if you would like to attend and the number of tickets you will need to your respective team coach. Cost for this event will be $8 per person, which will include your meal and ticket into the game. Hope to see you all there!

Eagles: Toni Boelter tboelter@minnesotahockey.org
Polars: Chris Winkel Christopher.Winkel@target.com
Stingers: Cheryl Caffrey chery.caffrey@target.com
RSVP’s must be received no later than July 1st. For further questions, please contact Toni Boelter at tonib@dakcom.org or by cell at 651-307-0660.

August 1 - Equipment swap. Minnesota Hockey will be opening up its storage shed to Disabled hockey only on Saturday, August 1st from Noon to 4pm. Come after our summer skate (see next item) and browse through the shed for new and used equipment. I have seen it...it is a gold mine! More information will be posted on the Minnesota Special Hockey website in the next few weeks.

August - Summer skate! We will be skating 3 times this summer.
http://www.mnspecialhockey.org/2009SummerFlyer.pdf
We hope to see as many of you there as possible.

August 22 - Section 108 Golf Tournament, information will be posted soon. http://www.section108golf.com/. We will need volunteers to help with registration and selling raffle tickets.

Sunday, October 25th - Mark your calendars for our kick off skate on October 25th - 2 - 3:30 p.m. at Mariucci. More information to follow.

President Susie email – Board meeting

My name is Susie Miller. I am the President/Executive Director of MN Special Hockey.

Just a little history about our program. We started in the Spring of 2006. We held a 6 week mini program at Richfield Ice Arena. We had 27 skaters register. We were thrilled with the interest. That fall we started our first season. We had two teams. The South Stingers, out of Edina, and the North Polars, out of Blaine. The Stingers started strong with many of the spring session participants signing up. The Polars had less than 10 players attending on a regular basis. The 2007-2008 was the year we added the East Eagles. We had just a handful of players, but at this point the Polars and the Stingers both had nearly full teams. For 2008-2009 we did not add another team. We wanted to make sure all three teams were successful. Last season we found success with all three teams, so this fall we will be starting another team. The West Wildcats. They will play out of Albertville and Rogers. We are also planning on adding a team in International Falls this fall.

With the growth of the program MN Special Hockey organization has also grown and changed. As of March, 2008 we officially became a 501c3 Non Profit Organization. We are an organization with a 8 Member Board of Directors. Each year we are to have an annual meeting. At this meeting we will hold elections for our board of directors, as well as have a mini summary of the past year and receive a treasurers report. We are holding our Annual Meeting on Friday, July 24 at 5:45 p.m. at Midway Stadium in St. Paul (immediately before our summer Saints game celebration). We hope you are able to attend…

Summer and Fall 2009: Hockey camp, Wild funfest and more

Toni Boelter has sent us reminders of summer events, which I've revised and included below. I've also added them to the MN SH calendar, which is now atop this news blog.

MN SH Summer Skating Camps (PDF) will run twice this summer for current and potential players. There are two camps - North and South. The North camp at the Rogers Activity Center will run for 3 Saturdays, August 1-15. The South camp in Eagan runs for 3 Saturdays from August 8-22. Click this link (PDF) for more details.

Minnesota WILD Funfest: June 25th, 2009. 5p-9p. This year Minnesota Hockey will have a tent at the WILD Funfest that will be dedicated to Minnesota Disabled Hockey. We are looking for family members and players who would be willing to volunteer at the tent this year. Come for a 2 hour shift and enjoy the funfest the rest of the time. Please e-mail me by June 10th to let me know if this is something you would be interested in doing. It is held in Rice Park and there will be players, food, and lots of fun!!

Equipment swap. Minnesota Hockey will be opening up its storage shed to Disabled hockey only on Saturday, August 1st from Noon to 4 pm. Come after our summer skate (see next item) and browse through the shed for new and used equipment. I have seen it…it is a gold mine! More information will be posted on the Minnesota Special Hockey website in the next few weeks.

Mark your calendars for our kick off skate on October 24th! Can you believe it!

Saints game! Back by popular demand, we will have a Special Hockey Saints game again in July. More details to follow.

Google is going to make a mess of our main site in June

Google has sunset a product and will move this site to a different product in June. I expect the move will be painful and that the main site will be messed up for a while.

This blog will not be affected by the move.

Fortunately it's not September yet! I do have a site backup.

There's nothing we can do now but wait and see.

Remington featured on Fox 21 News

A very determined MN SH athlete gets some media attention ...

Tonight at 9: efforts to bring Minnesota Special Hockey north | FOX21Online.com

INTERNATIONAL FALLS - In the State of Hockey, everyone plays. But, it’s not always easy to find a team.

This Thursday and Friday on FOX 21 News at 9, join Nick LaFave as he travels with a family from their home in International Falls all the way to the Twin Cities, just so their son can play the game he loves.

He’ll also explore the Minnesota Special Hockey program, and look at it’s efforts to expand to the Northland.

Unfortunately the Fox video clip was only transiently available, we don't have a copy at this time.

Season 2009-2009 is a wrap

Another terrific season has come to a successful conclusion.

All the images in today's slideshow, and photos from the game and awards, are on the MN Special Hockey photo site. The albums allow anyone to get a full sized (hi res) copy of any picture and to order prints and other photo items.

This link will take you directly to page 20 or so of this year's album. That's where the final game begins.

We've added additional Stinger and Polars pictures from other photographers. If you have pictures you'd like to share please send a CD or email to

John Faughnan
1660 Stanford Ave
Saint Paul, MN 55105
jfaughnan@gmail.com

Slideshow for 2009 end of season banquet

We'll have a slide show for the end of season banquet (John Faughnan's pictures are in our online photo albums). This post is to help organize the show, John will edit it as we finalize things.

We'd like more people to contribute photos and we'd like a projector.

What we've got:

Helping: Cindy Coughlin, Toni Boelter, John Faughnan
Laptop(s) and VGA converter cable: Faughnan
Power strip, extension cord: Faughnan
External display: Faughnan
Photos: Faughnan (Eagles, Stingers mostly)
Projector: Toni Boelter

What we could use

MORE POLAR pictures
Screen
Official team photos
Individual player pictures (ex. Eagle and Polar flyers)
A volunteer who's not tied down with coaching, etc
Secure room for gear

If we have a projector then we need to figure out how to consolidate images on the laptop. Copying GBs of images from a DVD can easily take over 30 minutes.

John will have to help with coaching and working with Tim and Ben, so we need to work on timing.

MN SH promotion event Friday March 13 - volunteers needed

From Toni B: On Friday, March 13th, Minnesota Hockey has invited us to share their booth, hand out hockey items and share our story about Minnesota Special Hockey. The booth needs to be manned from 12 noon to 6pm, and we are looking for players and family members who will wear their jerseys and share their stories.

We will have a video that discusses disabled hockey, but the personal stories and presence are always the best.

Please e-mail Toni Boelter at tonib@dakcom.org and let me know what time you can be there, your names and how many people will be joining you. This will take place at the River Center the same time the boys state hockey tourney is going on. Thank you in advance! Toni Boelter

End of season game and banquet - TIME AND LOCATION CHANGE

We've changed locations and times for the end-of-season game.

The new location is Breck Ice Arena is at: 4210 Olson Memorial Hwy, Golden Valley. You can see it in this Google Map view. There's parking in back of the arena.

From the new announcement:

Join us for the Final Games of the Year and the end of the season banquet!

Who: All MN Special Hockey Players, Families & Guests
When: Sunday, March 15, 2:30—4:00 p.m.
Pizza Party immediately following.

Where: Breck Ice Arena, 4210 Olson Memorial Highway, Golden Valley, MN

PLEASE NOTE TIME AND LOCATION CHANGE!!!
Questions, please contact your coach or call 612-325-3392

I've revised our web site calendar.